Art in the United States is a kind of visual entertainment focusing on expected narratives.

Art in the United States is a kind of visual entertainment focusing on expected narratives.

In some Arab art exhibitions that have happened, there's always this idea that the East is more traditional; they show a lot of works on calligraphy and religion.

People want to see things that are visually beautiful.

Maybe there are some traditional things, but they are more about the way the West packages the East.

You witness the artists acting as witnesses, but they provide a point of view that's less monolithic. It's less official in a certain way. Many artists are speaking in the first person singular, as a reaction to dubbed-over media commentary. The thought is: "Enough with how we're represented by the media. Let me tell the story."

We need to remind ourselves that contemporary art is first of all a form of conceptual gymnastics, in which we learn to coexist with what we don't understand.